Interesting Links for 18-07-2021

[andrewducker]

Should you never want to see your children again, this will do the trick

(tags:children fairytale )

I had not realised that Joss Whedon was also transphobic

(tags:transgender JossWhedon OhForFucksSake )

The mountains that are older than fish (and stretch from America to Norway via Scotland)

(tags:mountains prehistory viaNancyLebov )

GM Will Suck Lithium From the Salton Sea to Make Batteries

(tags:batteries sea )

American gender roles are a trauma reaction to WW2

(tags:ww2 society gender )

£20m for research projects to improve treatment and mitigation of long Covid

(tags:pandemic research )

The Covid vaccine has been offered to all UK adults

(tags:UK vaccination )

New Anthony Bourdain documentary deepfakes his voice

(tags:AI voice )

Comments

[anna_wing]

My first thought upon seeing the mushroom photo was "I wonder if they are edible?" It turns out that many species form rings, so one would have to check.

I visited Inverewe Garden many years ago, and was sitting on the Poolewe beach in the evening enjoying the concept of a long sunset (night falls with a crash in tropical latitudes, especially near the equator; invitations for a sunset cocktail need to be kept with absolute punctuality), reading a local guide pamphlet. Which told me not to bother looking for fossils among the pretty, dark red, limestone pebbles that I was sitting on, since the rock from which they had been worn down was 2 billion years old, and predated multicellular life. That was my Deep Time moment.

The Historical Time moment was in Istanbul, looking at the obelisk and realising that it was already a thousand years old when Herodotus wrote about Egypt...that put Middle-earth into perspective too.

[andrewducker]

The sign in the garden is quite mindblowing.

[anef]

I have been reading Herodotus Book 2 this last year and although the travelogue of temples and beautiful gardens could get a bit dull I would occasionally remember "This is Egypt before Alexander, before the Romans." And every time it sent that frisson down my spine. Also the story of How Helen Never Went to Troy was deeply entertaining.